Vilnius to probe Lithuanian-based former son-in-law of Łukašenka’s ally

July 30, Pozirk. The Lithuanian interior ministry’s migration department has requested the country’s State Security Department to assess possible national security risks posed by Andrej Šymanovič, a Lithuanian-based Belarusian software developer who is a former son-in-law of Alaksandar Łukašenka’s close ally Viktar Šejman.

According to the migration department, the request is its response to a recent investigative article by Buro Media titled “Agent 00SIM: How Andrej Šymanovič created a well-known spy service, became related to Šejman by marriage and did business in both Belarus and the EU.”

The department has also contacted Lithuania’s National Cyber Security Centre and Criminal Police Bureau to investigate whether the software mentioned in the report can be considered malicious.

The department says that it will decide on Šymanovič’s future “legal status” in Lithuania based on feedback from government agencies. 

In its report, Buro Media says that Šymanovič in 2016 married Volha Šejman, Viktar Šejman’s only daughter. In 2023, Šymanovič obtained a residence permit in Lithuania, by which time he was already divorced.

In 2011, Šymanovič created the mSpy application, which “allowed users to remotely monitor another person’s phone, tablet or computer and view their messages, location, photos, social media activity, call history and search history.” The developers marketed mSpy as a parental control tool, but it later turned out that only 40 percent of clients used it for that purpose. Moreover, the article noted, data leaks occurred in 2015, 2018, and 2024, initially affecting hundreds of thousands, and later millions, of app users.

Among Šymanovič’s other applications, the report mentions eSIM Plus, which “provides virtual numbers and internet access while travelling, eliminating the need for roaming.” The service excessively acquires access to the user’s location, sends telemetry data to Russia’s Yandex AppMetrica and uses the infrastructure of the Russian company Voximplant for call routing.

Buro Media says that it carried out its investigation in cooperation with Belarusian hacktivist group CyberPartisans, cybersecurity experts at Human Constanta and Resident NGO and the Lithuanian investigative project Siena.

Viktar Šejman has been under Western sanctions for more than two decades. The official, often described as Alaksandar Łukašenka’s “right-hand man,” is suspected of running a death squad that killed regime opponents in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Three months ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced new sanctions against 11 Belarusian entities and 16 nationals, including Šejman. Kyiv identified him as one of the organizers of “sanctions-evasion schemes.”